For the fifth consecutive year, voters in Iowa express strong favoritism towards Planned Parenthood. The organization’s strength with voters transcends gender, age, and geographic lines.
By a 2:1 margin, voters view Planned Parenthood favorably, unchanged from previous years
- Iowa voters give Planned Parenthood a 62% favorable – 29% unfavorable rating, virtually identical to their rating last year (63% favorable – 32% unfavorable). The chart below shows Planned Parenthood’s favorability over the past five years.
- Among the voters who rate Planned Parenthood favorably, half are very favorable towards the organization (32%).
Support for Planned Parenthood cuts across age, gender, and regional lines
- While women are more favorable towards Planned Parenthood (64% favorable – 28% unfavorable), male voters are also 2:1 favorable towards
- Likewise, younger voters are more favorable towards Planned Parenthood (77% fav – 18% unfav among voters under 35), but all age breaks are roughly 2:1 favorable towards the organization.
- In every media market, Planned Parenthood’s favorability rating is above 60% -- in Cedar Rapids it is 62% - 26%, in Davenport it is 60% - 31%, in Des Moines it is 64% - 28%, and in Omaha it is 60% - 36%.
Voters in Iowa express dissatisfaction with the priorities the Iowa state legislature has focused on this past session, with a majority wanting the legislature to focus on the economy and jobs above all else.
Nearly half (46%) of Iowa voters feel the legislature had the wrong priorities during the most recent session; only one in three (33%) think they had the right ones.
- Voters do not believe that the Iowa state legislature focused on the right priorities this past session. Not only do 46% believe they focused on the wrong priorities, but 49% of Independents, and 54% of Democrats also believe they had the wrong priorities.
Voters overwhelmingly wanted the legislature to focus on jobs and the economy, ahead of all other issues
- The top priority voters wanted the legislature to focus on was jobs and the economy (58% cited it as the issue they’d want the legislature to make their first or second priority). Behind that, important issues to voters were education (26%) and budget and taxes (25%). Issues like healthcare (12%), social issues (7%), and the environment (4%) did not rank as important priorities.
Only 2% of voters said that social issues should be the legislature’s #1 priority, compared with 48% who said that jobs and the economy should be their top priority.
Instead, voters believe that the legislature made the budget and social issues their top priorities
- Just 22% of voters believe that the legislature actually did place jobs and the economy as their top priority, putting it behind the budget and taxes (40%) and social issues (28%) in voters’ perceptions of the legislature’s top priority. Education (16%), healthcare (6%), and the environment (4%) fell behind these.
Iowa voters overwhelmingly support teaching a comprehensive sex education curriculum in Iowa public schools that would include information about contraceptives as a way to prevent pregnancy and STIs. Beyond this, voters express similarly high levels of support for providing state funding for family planning services, including providing contraceptives to low-income women.
By a 51-point margin, voters support teaching comprehensive sex education in Iowa public schools.
- Voters support teaching comprehensive sex education in Iowa public schools as opposed to teaching abstinence only (70% comprehensive - 19% abstinence only). Over the last three years, voters’ support for teaching comprehensive sex education in public schools has progressively expanded, depicted in the figure below.
- Even among the 19% of voters who prefer an abstinence only curriculum, 46% support including information about STIs and their prevention in public schools’ curriculum.
- Among parents who have children in Iowa public schools, support for comprehensive sex education is even higher – 75% support comprehensive sex education.
Voters strongly support providing funding for family planning services to women who cannot afford it
- By a nearly 2:1 margin (60% - 34%) voters believe that the state of Iowa should fund family planning services including contraceptives to people who cannot afford it.
Anzalone Liszt Research conducted N=800 live telephone interviews with likely 2012 voters in Iowa, including
10% cell phone completes. Interviews were conducted between September 6 – 14, 2011. Respondents were selected
at random, with interviews apportioned geographically based on past voter turnout. Expected margin of sampling
error is #3.5% with a 95% confidence level.
Anzalone Liszt Research conducted N=800 live telephone interviews with likely 2010 general election voters in Iowa. Interviews were conducted between August 9-16, 2010. Respondents were selected at random, with interviews apportioned geographically based on past voter turnout. Expected margin of sampling error is #3.5% with a 95% confidence level.
